VIENNA.- The walls of the stairwell that leads to Francis Offman’s exhibition Weaving Stories are covered in dried coffee grounds. The dark tactile material transforms the narrow entrance to the exhibition space on the first floor into an immersive olfactory experience.


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Coffee is both at the core of Francis Offman conceptual understanding of painting as well as a signifier of the two worlds that are connected within the artist’s life: he grew up in Rwanda and witnessed the genocide in 1994, during which extremists from the Hutu majority murdered between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people – most of the victims were Tutsi, but moderate Hutu were also killed. In 1999, Offman emigrated to Italy, where he has lived ever since. Whereas coffee culture is an integral part of Italian identity today, it wasn’t embedded in Rwandan society until German colonial rule (1897–1916). Coffee was grown, for export only, in areas farmed by local people whose livelihoods were destroyed and that were forced to work on the colonial plantations.

Offman started working with coffee grounds when opening the last package his mother brought him from Rwanda. The loss of his homeland, migration and separation, the traumatic experiences of his parents and the longing for the Rwanda of his childhood are evident in every one of his works.

To prevent decomposition, Offman prepares the coffee grounds with glue and primer to create colour fields on canvas. The meticulous, almost old masterly processes he applies in his work are firmly grounded in the Italian art historical canon. The artist considers his assemblages, which are animated by different textures and materialities, “abstract paintings”. Sometimes materials protrude over the edges of the unstretched canvasses, further emphasising their haptic and three-dimensional potential. Despite conveying a certain lyrical spontaneity, Offman’s works are made in a time-consuming process to prevent them from shrinking or tearing. Although they speak of a dedicated engagement with media-specific and technical questions, they cannot be reduced to an apolitical formalism; on the contrary, they are infused with the artist’s life and the history of (neo-)colonialism.

Offman’s artistic process begins before the actual work on canvas: with the gathering of found and gifted materials that not only create shapes and gestures, but also hold individual histories and cultural contexts. What was once due to the artist’s precarious situation has now become his distinguishing feature: the exchange and encounter with different people who provide him with materials – Rwanda has an especially strong tradition of oral storytelling – are an important part of this work. At the beginning of his practice, the artist used gifted dowry bedlinen as support for his paintings. Patterns are created by using clothes that once belonged to his mother. Scraps of paper come from shoeboxes. Cut-off collars are a reference to a political gesture of resistance against the authorities by people in Rwanda. Oftentimes, expired gauze bandages he once gathered during a residency form gestural strokes. They refer to the body and evoke a sense of vulnerability while at the same time pointing to the distribution of expired medical products to aid projects in Africa.

For Offman, his paintings are like sacred objects – the immersion into their creative and destructive energies is a form of healing and therapy that has the potential for transformation. Or in the words of the artist: “I love working with my hands. When you engage with my paintings, you can almost smell the coffee or lavender. I enjoy how different surfaces create unique sensations, how colours interact with textures, and how this interaction gives rise to a visual language that speaks to people. This is why I like experimenting with different materials. When balanced correctly, they form a language that allows me to connect with others, evoke or preserve emotions, and explore deep questions about life.”

Francis Offman was born in Butare, Rwanda, in 1987. He lives and works in Bologna, Italy.

Programmed by the board of the Secession

Curated by Bettina Spörr